


Gravity

by soteriophobe



Category: White Collar
Genre: Dark, Delusions, Gen, Hallucinations, Psychotropic Drugs, Sequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-27
Updated: 2012-06-27
Packaged: 2017-11-08 16:58:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/445437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soteriophobe/pseuds/soteriophobe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"With galaxies that start out so close together, it is almost always gravity that wins. In the end, the galaxies will collide."</i>
</p><p>Sequel to <i>Galaxies</i>. What has happened to Peter Burke?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gravity

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Galaxies](https://archiveofourown.org/works/438222) by [soteriophobe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/soteriophobe/pseuds/soteriophobe). 



> Huge, huge thanks to my amazing beta, Sholio. <3!

*

*

*

 

The Utica Centre For Sleep Disorders is one of those hospitals that should have been shut down in the 80s, when modern psychiatry made the idea of lifelong institutionalization obsolete. Tall and grey and imposing, surrounded by lush green gardens and painted a more sickly, gooseberry green on the inside; it is a place of linoleum floors and antiseptic smells and two-way mirrors and echoes.

And sleep – the entire place is just rooms and rooms of people sleeping, people watching other people sleep. Some hallways are nothing more than a long stretch of locked doors with monitors beside them, each showing a black-and-white figure in the depths of slumber. Other halls feature “Observation Rooms” – cells with huge picture windows cut into them, so that doctors can assemble and watch the patient within, discuss them, bat around theories.

Observation rooms are generally reserved for patients who don’t wake up.

It’s in front of one of these rooms that Neal finds himself, now. He is supposed to be looking at Peter, but all he really sees is himself – his own eyes, dark with sorrow, reflected back at him in the glass. He can’t yet bring himself to focus on the motionless figure that lies in the bed before him.

He pulls himself away from his own gaze, turning his eyes to the doctor beside him.

“How long has he been like this?”

“Three weeks,” the doctor replies. Neal never got his name – Dr Cristan, Tristan, something like that – but it hardly matters. The guy creeps him out. He’s currently peering at Neal with interest through large glasses, scratching absently at the back of his head. Dandruff drifts down onto his shoulders like Christmas snow.

There’s a catch at the back of Neal’s throat that he tells himself has everything to do with his disgust at the doctor’s poor grooming, and nothing to do with the terror he feels for his partner - friend. He frowns, confusion and frustration squeezing gently at his temples.

“Is he in a coma? Is he…brain dead? What’s wrong with him?”

The doctor shrugs, shakes his head. “We don’t know. We just….don’t know.”

He motions to a chair, and Neal takes the seat gratefully, happy to have an excuse to keep his eyes off the observation window. The doctor sits across from him, pushing a file over the surface of the table between them. It is marked: _John Doe, 43,_ and Neal cannot help but feel sick. All these weeks, they’ve been looking for _Special Agent Peter Burke_ – and the whole time he’s been…here. Nameless and motionless, in this horrible place.

The doctor mumbles, as Neal opens the file and begins to peruse it. “A curious case, for sure. I’ve never seen anything like it. He was dropped at a nearby E.R., and it was presumed that he was in a persistent vegetative state – until they ran the EEG, of course. As you can see, it shows his brain to be-….well, your friend is anything but brain-dead. If anything, his brain is more alive than yours or mine.”

Unfolding the aforementioned readout, Neal can see that the EEG has drawn a mess of lines and spikes, like a seismograph must do during an earthquake. Neal knows nothing about neurology – but he can grasp what the doctor is saying. One imagines that brain death would be…flat.

Neal can feel dread crawling at the back of his eyes, up the back of his throat, raking its fingernails over the soft flesh there. He glances up at the doctor.

“So what-….what does that mean? What’s his brain doing?”

“As near as we can tell, he’s…dreaming - or, hallucinating. Having what appears to be nightmares, specifically. But these-…these aren’t ordinary nightmares, if they’re nightmares at all. There’s never been a nightmare recorded with readings this intense; and as far as I know, there’s never been a patient who’s had so _many_ nightmares in a row. Your…Agent Burke, was it? His brain has been engaged in what appears to be dream activity almost constantly, for the entire three weeks that he’s been here. His charts just show REM cycle after REM cycle after REM cycle – there’s no movement to any other stage of sleep.”

Neal looks up, the dread digging its claws in. “How is that possible?”

The doctor shakes his head. “It isn’t. Sleep phases are a process, Mr Caffrey – the brain doesn’t just…get stalled in one, and forget to keep moving. I mean – occasionally, there have been cases of…advanced-stage fatal prion insomnia, where a damaged brain begins to go into continuous REM cycles as a result of severe sleep deprivation, but....”

Neal stares at the man opposite, trying to wrap his mind around the words that he’s hearing. He puts an agitated hand to his brow.

“But-…that’s insomnia, sleep _deprivation_. You told me that Peter’s been asleep since he got here.”

The doctor looks plainly back at him, smudges of grease obscuring the green eyes behind his glasses. “I said that your friend has been _in this state_ since he arrived here. But as for his status…honestly, Mr Caffrey, we have no idea whether Agent Burke is asleep or awake. If anything, he seems to be hovering between the two states. Almost like some kind of hypnogogia.”

Neal sits back in his chair, legs splayed, feeling punched. He runs his hands back through his hair. It takes him a moment – and a glance at the glass window between he and Peter – before he can speak.

“What would do this? _Who_ could do this? I mean…this isn’t normal. This was… _done_ to him, right?”

The doctor studies Neal for a moment, silent. He is obviously curious as to what has brought the younger man here, what happened to Peter before he landed on the Utica Institute’s doorstep – but he doesn’t ask, smart enough to know better. He exhales.

“He may have been drugged, or exposed to some kind of…chemical weapon? Now that I’m aware of his occupation, it makes more sense that such a thing could happen. We found a compound in his bloodstream, when we were testing him for toxic exposure – we’ve never seen it before. Chemically, it has similarities to a pharmaceutical derived from the _Datura_ plant, scopolamine-“

“The zombie drug?” Neal interrupts, his heart constricting. He’s heard of _Datura_ , scopolamine – mostly in the context of Columbian drug cartel kidnappings. Suddenly, sickeningly, this is all starting to make sense.

The doctor sighs, shaking his head. “The…”zombie” effect of scopolamine is probably the most well-known, yes; high doses of the drug causes people to become…compliant. That particular effect, however, is inconsistent and unpredictable – more often than not, scopolamine merely causes a profound state of psychosis, one which is usually highly unpleasant for the victim.

“How so?”

“The…hallucinations are usually quite horrific, inspired by the victim’s fears and insecurities. The victim rarely has any insight into the fact that they’re delusional or hallucinating, very little sense of where they are or what year it is, and they can vacillate between violent mania and catatonia. I believe that these symptoms are most similar to what your friend is experiencing.”

The doctor allows his eyes to drift to the observation window, and he frowns, shaking his head.

“That said, the substance we identified in your friend’s blood was _not_ scopolamine. Similar, yes – but…whatever has been given to your friend, it’s definitely a novel chemical agent. So, when it comes to Agent Burke’s prognosis, we can’t reliably base our hypothesis on our knowledge of scopolamine’s effects. We can’t reliably predict _anything_ about his prognosis, in fact.”

Neal spends a moment absorbing this, mind racing – and it’s not until the doctor motions to him, that he looks up again, speaks.

“So…you’re telling me that we know nothing.”

He almost laughs, as he says it. Thirty minutes of discussion, and this is the big reveal?

The doctor frowns, taking off his glasses and wiping them on his shirt. “I’m telling you, Mr Caffrey, that…your friend may not wake, if he is indeed even sleeping. And if he does wake, the effects of the drug could be permanent. There may be severe residual psychosis. ”

Neal’s bemusement vanishes instantly and is replaced by breathlessness. “Severe residual psychosis” sounds suspiciously like a tactful way of saying “completely insane” or “never the same again”.

Neal places a hand over his mouth, allows his eyes to close. Not Peter – anyone but Peter, with his sharp mind and kind heart. He can’t be lost to them forever – he just…cannot. This can’t be happening.

All those weeks that his partner was missing, all those weeks that Neal spent hoping, wishing, praying that Peter was alive. He got his wish – but…this is all wrong, this isn’t how it was supposed to go. He can’t think of any worse fate for Peter, than for him to go through the indignity of losing his mind so profoundly.

“Would you like to see him, Mr Caffrey?”

The doctor’s voice – kinder, now – breaks his reverie. Neal takes a deep breath, nodding, knowing that this moment was inevitable. He came here to see Peter, right? He did so knowing that, at some point, he would have to walk into that room, and actually _see_ Peter. No matter what state Peter was in.

He supposes that he’d hoped the situation would be…better. That Peter might be on-the-mend, that they might end up cracking grim jokes with each other, that at the very least Peter would _know_ that Neal was there. Neal never imagined…this.

The doctor takes his time rattling keys, unlocking the door, stepping aside to grant Neal entrance. Neal hesitates, and steps into the room.

It smells sour in there, plastic, and there is a faint beep of monitors. As Neal approaches to stand beside the bed, Peter’s facial features get more and more recognizable. He looks…pale, face thinner than the last time Neal saw him. There’s a wound on his brow has been sutured-and-unsutured and is healing slowly, will leave a scar. His expression seems…tortured, somehow, even though it’s entirely blank, eyes closed and mouth slack. A tension, perhaps, in the brow? Maybe Neal is just projecting.

Still – if the doctor is right. God, if he’s right-…if Peter has been in some kind of half-coma for weeks, having nightmares or nightmarish visions of some kind; if those nightmares have been unusually vivid, completely real to him…well. Peter Burke doesn’t want for deep, dark fears – doing the job he does, having seen the things he’s seen, knowing the things that he knows. He has plenty of nightmare fuel in his head, Neal is sure. The drug – whatever the drug is – would have plenty to work with, feed on.

He reaches up and slips his hand into Peter’s. It’s limp, cold; all of its usual strength and warmth are gone.

Neal murmurs, “Hang in there, Buddy.”

He nods that the doctor should leave them, sits in the chair by Peter’s bed, and stares at Peter’s troubled face with his own troubled eyes for long enough that he loses track of time. He’s only pulled from his reverie by a sobbing gasp from the doorway, sharp enough that he starts and looks up suddenly.

Elizabeth is carefully closing the door behind her with one hand, the other still clamped over her mouth to stifle any further sounds. Neal stands and glances at his watch, discreetly – he hadn’t expected her to arrive so soon. From Manhattan to Utica in less than two hours? She must have driven like a NASCAR racer.

Of course, she did. It’s Peter.

She crosses to her husband’s bedside, tears in her eyes, and Neal moves to embrace her – a sweet-but-harried hug, as she’s eager to lean over Peter and stroke the hair from his brow, plant a kiss on it, take a turn at squeezing her husband’s hand.

“The doctor talked to you?” Neal asks, placing his hand on the small of her back for support, his voice kind. While he doubts that any member of the White Collar division has slept soundly since Peter disappeared, the hell of the last five weeks has been shared most intensely between he and Elizabeth; arguably, the two people closest to Peter. They now have a strange, intimate friendship that they never seemed to share before – new, but…easy. They’ve needed each other.

Elizabeth nods, tears spilling down her face, and then….shakes her head.

“Almost everything. …But he didn’t tell me if Peter was gonna…. _wake up_ , or…not.”

She winces, the words painful to say, the question painful to ask. Neal shakes his head.

“They just don’t know, El. But-…I mean, even if he does wake up-…”

He can’t finish the sentence, and Elizabeth freezes for a moment, queasy understanding settling more deeply into the grooves of her face as she finally grasps – as Neal was forced to, earlier – that, even though the man lives, Peter Burke may not really exist anymore. Neal braces himself as she pales, sure that she’s about to start crying or screaming, or that she’s simply going to faint dead away. After a moment, though, she just sets her jaw, shaking her head, determined.

“He’ll come back. He’ll be okay. Whatever he’s been given…it’ll wear off, and he’ll be okay.” She pauses, pursing her lips, and then moving to cling to Peter’s hand more tightly – almost defensively – as she meets Neal’s eyes.

“I _know_ him, Neal. He gets through things. He’s going to get through this.”

Neal nods in agreement, but can’t bring himself to believe her. He learned a long time ago that sheer human will is nothing in the face of biology; and that you never really _know_ anyone, no matter how convinced you are to the contrary.

*

The next two weeks are a blur – he and Elizabeth rent rooms at a motel nearby, share a vigil at Peter’s bedside; make phone calls; doze fitfully and pick at cold cereal, take-out. Elizabeth calls Peter’s parents, her own family, friends, liaises with her colleagues at Burke Premier Events. Neal calls Diana, updating her and demanding that she update him. He checks in with the Marshals, who extended his radius to Utica on Hughes orders, but still want daily phone contact. He calls Mozzie, who he’s mailed one of Peter’s blood samples to, trusting the little man to utilize all of his “secret government” medical contacts in an attempt to figure out just what the hell might be coursing through the agent’s system, if it was manufactured by anything resembling an official laboratory, if it’s possible that there’s an antidote out there somewhere.

It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.

Neal had hardly blinked when Peter had told him – more than a month ago, now – that he was being loaned to organized crime for a week or two, to give them a hand on the Cortèga Cartel case. After all, Peter had worked in that department before, prior to his transfer to White Collar – and Peter was an accountant, a damned good one. If there were mobsters cooking books in any kind of interesting or novel way, it made sense that Organized Crime would want Peter on the investigation – he’d figure it out. He had before, he always did.

What had concerned Neal the most about Peter’s absence, really, was that it meant Neal was without a handler, stuck riding a desk for a couple of weeks – doing schlepwork for Diana, or looking over cold cases. That was the content of his last conversation with Peter: Neal whining about how bored he was going to be, and Peter bemusedly telling Neal to lie back and think of England.

If only Neal could have that time back, now. If only he could go back and talk to Peter again, knowing that it was the last conversation that they might ever have.

Neal had assumed everything was going fine with Peter’s assignment, until Elizabeth called him in a barely-suppressed panic late one night, explaining that Peter hadn’t come home and wanting to know if Neal had seen him.

Neal hadn’t seen him. Nobody, in fact, had seen him since the previous morning. Elizabeth’s last conversation with him – the last conversation that anyone had with him, it turned out - had been a day before, when he’d called her to tell her he was pulling an all-nighter, not to wait up. Apparently, he’d sounded normal – stressed, maybe, but no more than usual.

Apparently Peter hadn’t been pulling an all-nighter, though – at least, not at the Federal Building, not in any of the offices he had access to. The FBI had footage of him getting into his car at the end of the day, driving out of the parking garage. And then-…nothing. Agent Burke had vanished into thin air.

“They probably got him while he was on the road,” Neal explains to Elizabeth one evening, as she sits across the motel table from him and listlessly stirs a bowl of _Super Sugar Os_. “Between traffic cameras. They could have car-jacked him on a quiet street – or had someone waiting in his backseat, all the way from the garage.”

Elizabeth nods – shivers, despite herself. But then she clinks her spoon down in frustration, brow furrowed.

“The thing is, this is-…what he was working on, it didn’t seem that dangerous. He wasn’t even doing field work – he told me they had him at a desk, looking over ledgers all day. He-…”

She trails off, motioning to Neal – she is exhausted, flat. The two of them have been over these facts, have had this conversation, a dozen times. But how can they talk about anything else, at a time like this?

Neal frowns. “If he found something – something big, something that could blow open their operation…that would have been enough. Cartels like this don’t mess around, El. They-”

Neal stops himself, abruptly, from going on – resists the urge to note that Peter is lucky to be alive, lucky that whoever took him didn’t just kill him outright. Cartels – well, don’t they shoot first and ask questions later?

Maybe the drug was an effort to figure out what Peter knew - to make him malleable and controllable and open to suggestion. Neal has heard of such things before – tourists who go to Mexico, get kidnapped, and then “willingly” empty their bank accounts for the kidnappers while drugged. It makes sense that the cartel would try to get information from Peter in the same way.

Something went wrong, though. Whatever they gave Peter…didn’t have the desired effect. So they dumped him.

And now: here they are.

Neal leans back in his chair, runs his hands through his hair, tries to swallow the lump in his throat. Elizabeth watches him, expression inscrutable.

He keeps telling El, telling himself, that they were lucky to find Peter alive – but he isn’t so sure. The thought of his friend lying in a stupor, trapped in a dreamlike hell of his mind’s own making-…it triggers Neal’s gag reflex, makes his heart race. And he wonders if it wouldn’t have been better – for Peter - if they’d found his body floating in the East River, his mind mercifully still.

*

Elizabeth doesn’t do well with staying up all night, Neal discovers. The few times she’s taken the night shift with Peter, she’s been…unwell, as a result. More emotional than usual, head pounding, eyes red, refusing to eat. She’s one of those people with a well-timed body clock, a person who sleeps soundly at night (though, perhaps not for much longer).

So Neal takes the bulk of the night shifts, leaving Elizabeth at the hotel to sleep. It makes him nervous, sometimes – after all, Peter was abducted, what if the cartel decides to go after Elizabeth as well? But she has refused to stay in a safe house or with agents every time he’s asked her, her eyes gleaming with stubborn rage. She refuses to act as though she’s afraid, no matter how terrified she might be.

It’s going to get her into trouble one day – the façade, the denial. Neal knows all too well. But now isn’t the time to push her. So he gives her the day shifts, and he sits with Peter at night.

Neal and Elizabeth never talk about why they do this – sit with Peter, make sure that he’s never alone in this place, take it in turns to act as a sentry standing over him. Peter’s greasy doctor is puzzled at their behavior, keeps pointing out to them that it’s pointless – Peter is under video surveillance, his room is locked, and the man doesn’t…. _do_ anything, he just lies there. Why not leave him at the hospital, wait to be notified of any change in his condition?

And, of course, the doctor always speaks with heavy implication: _Agent Burke’s condition isn’t likely to change_.

Neal isn’t sure of the answer – he doesn’t think Elizabeth is, either. Why does he come here and watch Peter lie motionless? Why does he feel panic and revulsion at the thought of leaving him alone for even five minutes?

Maybe it’s just guilt – that Peter has lain alone in this horrible place for so long – and Neal is trying to make up for lost time. Maybe it’s because Neal needs to know that someone trustworthy is watching Peter; the notion that Peter can’t disappear again so long as Neal or Elizabeth have their eyes on him, their hand in his.

Maybe Neal just wants one of them to be there when Peter wakes up – _when_ he wakes up. Prognosis be damned.

So Elizabeth takes the day shift, and he sits with Peter at night. He doesn’t mind – the night has always been his time; born nocturnal, he’s happy to sleep away the rainlit hours of the grey fall days. He brings a book, or Peter’s case files on the Cartel. And occasionally – very occasionally, when he’s particularly exhausted – he dozes off in his chair, head pillowed on the mattress beside his friend.

This is one of those nights – those rare, exhausted nights – when he gives in to the weariness and decides to “rest his eyes”.

When he wakes up, mouth stale and thoughts hazy, Peter is gone.

Neal’s palm is slamming into the nurse call button, even as he rises from his chair and rushes toward the doorway, his mind racing. There’s a tangle of discarded leads and IV tubing on the empty bed; everything tying Peter to the room pulled out and tossed aside.

Two possibilities: Peter has woken up, walked off – or, someone from the cartel has come in and taken him, planning to kill him after all, finish the job.

Neal is certain that the former must be the case – surely, he would have woken up if anyone else came into the room. But why didn’t he wake when Peter _left_ the room? How could a man who’s been in a coma-like state for weeks on end get up and slip soundlessly enough from his bed, that he didn’t wake the person dozing right beside him?

Later. He’ll figure all of that out later. Right now, he needs to find Peter.

A gaggle of nurses comes rushing down the hall, followed by a security guard. Neal flashes his consultant’s badge at the guard, eyes flicking to the ceiling and back.

“Cameras – you have cameras all over this place. I need to see the feeds.”

The guard frowns at him, pausing and allowing the nurses to go ahead of him, into Peter’s empty room. Neal raises his voice, panic starting to edge into it.

“Hey! A patient is missing, he’s an FBI agent, I need to see where the hell he went!”

One of the nurses walks out of the room, shakes her head, exchanges a look with the guard – and this is apparently the confirmation the guard needs. He nods, motions for Neal to follow him.

Minutes later, Neal is standing in front of a large panel of monitor screens, all filled with murky green images of people sleeping, empty hallways. Neal can feel the hair standing up on the back of his neck; it’s eerie. Why the hell does this place have so much surveillance equipment, anyway?

Later. Answers can wait until later.

It takes him ten minutes of switching channels, but he finally spots Peter. The agent is in the stairwell, crawling up the stairs on his hands and knees, looking ill. Neal stares at the image for a moment – takes a deep, shaking breath, doubling over, hands on his knees. For a moment, he’s overwhelmed – with relief, to see Peter conscious again, to know that he hasn’t been taken; and with fear, because he looks sick and _what the hell is he doing_?

Neal looks up at the monitor again just in time to see Peter leaning to the side of a landing, losing his lunch. The fear suddenly surges, overtakes the relief.

“Where do those stairs go?!” he barks at the security guard, already halfway out of the monitor room.

“Roof access is the only door that’s open in there!” the guard calls after him – Neal hears, but he’s already gone. He runs down the dark, empty hallways of the institute, automatic glass doors sliding open and closed with a hiss as he passes through them every 40 feet. As he goes, he scans the doorways – a thousand sleeping faces loom back at him from monitors, unaware.

Finally, he finds the door that he’s looking for – _Emergency Exit: Stairway Access._

He almost crashes into the door, attempts to yank it open – locked. He grunts, frustrated, contemplating for a second before taking the keycard that he uses to access Peter’s room and experimentally swiping it across the reader next to the door.

A beep, a green light. Thank god.

As Neal dashes into the stairwell, begins to take the stairs two at a time, he faintly wonders at why Peter’s doctor would have given him a skeleton key – but the thought is gone as soon as it appears, replaced by frantic concern and a burning stitch in his side as he continues to race up the 20 flights of stairs that lead to the roof. How the hell did Peter do this – and after being in a coma for weeks, nonetheless? Even Neal, far healthier, is struggling to maintain his stamina. He wonders that Peter didn’t check out on the 4th floor. Did the drug give him some kind of…surge of adrenaline? Is Peter just stubborn enough that he won’t let atrophied muscles stand in the way of whatever it is that he thinks he’s doing?

Later. Neal will ask Peter when he finds him, when Peter is well again.

He can smell vomit when he reaches flight 17, and finds the mess of it on the landing between flights 19 and 20. He also sees something more worrying: blood. Drops of it, then splashes, getting heavier as he gets higher.

He had wondered why the door to the roof was open when the rest of this place is locked down like a fortress, but he understands when he finally reaches the fire exit door – it’s propped open with a bucket full of sand and cigarette butts. Apparently the staff like to take their smoking breaks up here. There’s more blood on the ground, next to the bucket.

Wheezing and panting and weak with exertion, Neal walks through the door and looks around with wide eyes, breathlessly bleating the only thing he can get out:

“ _Peter?!”_

He can’t see his friend – but what he can see scares him: the roof has no railing, is just a flat patch of asphalt with a few electrical sheds scattered across it. And it’s raining, pretty heavily – Neal is suddenly aware that there is water in his hair, running over his face, dripping into his eyes.

His disoriented partner is alone on a roof with no railing, walking (or crawling) around on slippery asphalt. Fantastic.

He calls Peter’s name again, struggling to catch his breath – and takes a few steps forward, scanning the roof. The rain is loud, his breath makes clouds and he can hardly see a thing; so, after a moment, he closes his eyes and tries to quiet his mind, listen.

Rain. No dragging sounds, no footsteps. Traffic on the road below. And the soft sound of someone sobbing.

Neal’s eyes snap open, and he turns toward the voice, taking quick but careful steps toward one of the electrical sheds.

Peter is on his hands and knees, on the other side of it. It’s his head that’s bleeding – the healing wound there has been hit again, somehow, and it’s split open and leaking blood down the side of his face. Peter is pale and sick-looking, eyes brimming over with tears, soft sobbing sounds and babbled words passing through his lips almost as an afterthought. His hospital pajamas are wet and muddy and stained with blood and puke, his hair sopping over his forehead. He’s fixated on something on the ground in front of him – something that only Peter can see, something that isn’t there. He’s stroking it gently, almost reverently, shaking his head again and again – and after a moment of straining his ears, Neal can finally understand what he’s saying: “ _No, no, Satch-…no..”_

Satchmo. Peter is hallucinating. That his dog is…here? That something has happened to it.

Neal wants to go to Peter, help him up, get him inside; but he feels frozen in place, unable to move. He’s never seen Peter like this, and what the hell is he supposed to do? Somehow seeing Peter in the bed – motionless, _e_ motionless, silent – was much more comfortable and tolerable than confronting the broken mess in front of him is, now. Seeing anyone reduced to this, Neal imagines, is rattling – but Peter? Peter takes care of people, not the other way around.

And so, for longer than he intends to, Neal just…stands there, watches, cannot look away. The sight of Peter is like cars crashing in slow motion – hypnotic, terrible.

After a moment, Peter stops whimpering, drags himself forward, obviously barely able to hold himself up. He rasps something incoherent, finally reaching the side of the electrical shed and sliding his hands over the tin wall of it, mud and rainwater covering his hands and soaking his pajama shirt as he gasps to take a full breath.

Neal finally steps forward, quietly – finally, he feels compelled to move again. He has no idea what Peter is doing, but he obviously needs a doctor. And why the hell haven’t the nurses followed him up here, yet?

Neal takes several hesitant steps toward his friend, finally dropping to a crouch, and then his knees, putting himself on Peter’s level. He’s not exactly experienced with working with delirious people, but he figures it isn’t good to loom over them – right?

Apparently he’s wrong. At the thud of his knees hitting the gravel, Peter suddenly looks horrified and his head turns, his eyes snap to something in the distance, and he slides across the ground on hands and knees, staring in horror at…nothing. Something that his mind is tormenting him with. His hands flutter and shake as he seems to try touching whatever he sees, his brown eyes wide and pupils like pinpoints.

Neal crawls after him, draws breath to speak to him – say his name, try to ground him – but before he can, Peter makes an inhuman sound and seems to hug himself, face going white and shoulders heaving with dry, silent sobs.

Neal can feel his nerves rattling like a necklace of bones, and he finally just places a hand on Peter’s shoulder – cannot help himself, even though his instincts immediately scream: _Don’t touch him!_

“Peter? Peter, it’s me. Peter, it’s okay.”

Peter jumps, scrambles back, looking at Neal as though he’s some kind of ghost. Finally able to make eye contact, Neal can feel his stomach roll – Peter’s eyes are feverbright, wild, somewhere else. Neal swallows and pushes his panic down, trying to stay calm so that Peter might calm, shaking his head and holding up his hands.

“Peter, it’s okay. It’s me, Neal. Neal Caffrey.”

Peter looks from Neal to the invisible object on the ground and back, seemingly confused. His voice rasps as he speaks – choked with grief, underused.

“…What are you doing here? How’d you get in here?”

Neal frowns. _In here_? And it suddenly occurs to him that Peter isn’t just seeing things – he’s…somewhere else. Still dreaming, though he’s conscious. Neal swallows, shaking his head, hands still in the air.

“Where are we, Peter? Where are we?”

Peter blinks at the question, but doesn’t answer it – there’s a heavy moment of pause, and then something dawns over his face.

Before Neal knows what’s happening, Peter is on his feet – has hauled Neal to his feet – and is shoving him hard up against the wall of the electrical shed. The agent growls at him even as his voice breaks, eyes glowing with rage, shaking Neal until he feels nauseous.

“Did you do this?! Was it you?! I trusted you. Is this your _work_?!”

Neal forces himself to stay calm, keep breathing, keep swallowing, stay perfectly still in Peter’s grasp. It’s still a moment before he can speak – but when he does, he looks straight into Peter’s eyes, shaking his head, struggling to keep his voice even.

“I just got here, Peter. I just got here. I don’t even know what’s going on – I didn’t do _anything_.”

Peter stares at him, like he’s trying to bore through his face and read his thoughts. Neal wonders where the hell that security guard went. Frankly, he’s shocked at Peter’s strength, considering how ill he’s been – it has to be the drug, right? The doctor’s words of weeks ago echo in his mind: _they can vacillate between violent mania and catatonia._ He holds Peter’s gaze.

“Where are we, Peter? Tell me where we are.”

Peter stares at him a moment more – and then lets go of him, steps back. Neal can feel his thighs tense in preparation to launch forward, catch Peter as he falls – but somehow Peter remains standing, looking around the roof, eyes glassy and unfocused.

“I don’t-….what are you talking about?”

“Just tell me where we are, Peter. C’mon. …It’s raining, can you feel it raining? And it’s cold. We’re outside. You can look up and see the sky.”

Peter’s eyes roam around, and he suddenly looks…ill, confused, frightened. He glances back to that same spot on the asphalt – whatever he saw there must be gone, because he steps quickly over and gazes down, nudging the area with his foot. He looks sharply back to Neal, and Neal isn’t sure if he’s going to take a swing at him or start crying.

He does neither – just stands there, looks up at the sky as though he’s seeing it for the first time.

“…What’s happening to me,” he says, his voice quiet.

Neal shakes his head, frowning, wishing that Peter would look him in the face. Every time they make eye contact, Neal almost feels like Peter can hear him, but when Peter is turned away…

“You’re sick, Peter,” Neal says, his voice breaking over the words as a sudden well of grief and worry and stress comes surging up from his stomach like bile, pricking his eyes. He clears his throat.

“You’ve been really, really sick. And I need you to come with me, now, okay? So we can see your doctor, and get you better.”

Peter looks hopelessly confused for a moment – looks back to the pavement again, trying to find whatever he thinks he lost there, and then shakes his head – backs slowly away from Neal.

“No-….no. You’re _lying_. This is just-….just, another _con_. ‘So sick of being lied to, and tricked, and-….”

“ _Stop!_ Peter, stop!”

Neal can feel the words rip from his throat before he even realizes why he’s saying them – but then the sight before his eyes connects properly with his thoughts and cognitions and he can see the horrible scene in front of him: Peter, backing away from him with fear in his eyes, about to unknowingly step off of the edge of the roof, fall.

Neal takes a deep, sharp breath – his eyes are growing hot with desperation, and he shakes his head wildly at Peter. His voice is frantic, now, harried and slurred – the last semblance of his calm crumbling.

“Peter, you’re gonna fall – _stop_ , don’t move.” Neal swallows hard, holding a hand out to Peter but not daring to approach him. “Just…come toward me. C’mon, buddy – we’re ten floors up.”

Peter looks over his shoulder carefully, looks back to Neal. Neal isn’t sure if he realizes where he is, understands what Neal is telling him – but Neal’s heart is pounding in his ears, desperation rising.

“Please, Peter. C’mon over here, with me. We’ll go inside and get warm, and figure it out. Whatever it is, we’ll fix it. ”

Peter stares at him for a long minute, and Neal can’t tell if he’s crying or if that’s rain on his face. The man sounds utterly broken, though, when he speaks.

“You _can’t_. She’s already gone.” And now Neal is sure that Peter _is_ crying – he puts his hands over his face, shoulders shaking. His voice sounds thick and leaden with sickness, sadness.

“She was _everything_. I’m not gonna make it without her.”

Neal stares at Peter a moment, his exhausted mind chewing over his words for a moment before-…it clicks. _Of course._ Neal can’t believe that he didn’t realize, until now. It seems so obvious.

What other kind of nightmare would get Peter this upset, would have him in this kind of state? Elizabeth is like Achilles’ heel, Samson’s hair. If the drug is feeding on Peter’s worst fears, the first thing it would do is go after her. It would go after the people that Peter loves. Peter’s people, Peter’s heart – they’re his weak spots.

Neal looks back to the spot on the pavement that Peter keeps glancing to, and with dawning horror he realizes that he’s been seeing…what, her body? Maybe Satchmo’s, too, earlier. Jesus. How many times has Peter had the same dream? How many times has he watched Elizabeth die?

The thought is unsettling. Still, Neal can’t help but let out a relieved, humorless laugh as he shakes his head at Peter, causing the man to look up at him sharply.

“Peter, Elizabeth is alive – she’s _fine_. I’ve seen her every day, while you’ve been out of it. A-And….Satchmo’s fine, too – I mean, I assume-…El got a dogsitter.”

Peter stares at him, expression half-hopeful and half-heartsick, as though he’s trying to figure out if this is some kind of sick joke. Neal furrows his brows, trying to project all the sincerity he can, allow sincerity to fill him up and shine out of him, hoping that Peter – whatever part of Peter is still in there – will see it.

“Peter, whatever your brain is showing you – _it’s not real_. I promise you, it’s not real. You were-….drugged, and it made you sick. But you’re safe – everyone you care about is safe. You just need to come inside with me, so we can get your head fixed.”

Peter says nothing – just stares at Neal, his mind working, eyes occasionally flickering down to the pavement, where his hallucinations once laid. For what feels like hours, there is nothing but the sound of the rain and the traffic and their heavy breathing.

Then Peter steps back, his heels sliding over the edge of the roof, and Neal can feel his heart stop – skip – stop – skip.

“ _Peter._ ”

Peter turns his red eyes up to Neal, seemingly aware that he’s perched on some kind of precipice – although, where Peter thinks he is, Neal still isn’t sure. He speaks slowly, as though the words have to fight their way out.

“If-….I’ve gone nuts-….if I’m not seeing…reality; ….why should I trust you? What makes you more real than-…than _her_? How do I-….How do I know that you’re even _Neal_ , and not someone-…who’s acting like him? And _lying_ to me?”

Neal blinks at Peter, shaking his head, his throat tightening. How can he prove that he is who he says he is? That what he says is true? How can he do anything, when all of his thoughts consist of: _peter’sgonnafallgonnafallhisfeetaretippingandhe’sgonnafall…_?

Neal sucks in air, blows it out, and says the first thing that comes to his mind – his voice ragged, desperate, too-fast.

“W-We….were on a stakeout, remember? You were eating those nasty sandwiches and trying to get me t-to eat them, and-…and I kept saying you were gonna get sick one day, eating ham that comes in a jar. A-and-…and then, you were telling me that story ‘bout-…um, w-when you were a probie, this kindergarten reported some guy who stood in his window watching the kids play every day? And when the FBI w-went to b-bust him, ‘turned out that it w-was….a cardboard cutout of A-Arnold Schwarzenegger that some college kid put in the window. A-And…we couldn’t stop laughing, we were so tired.”

Neal can feel his heart hurting, his cheeks and lips shaking, and a tear falls from the corner of his eye and intermingles with the rain on his face. Stammering, trying to force himself to keep looking at Peter, he just keeps talking – because he’s scared, and he doesn’t know what else to do.

“A-and…um, when you got poisoned? You made me go g-get that…. _asshole_ from his office, and then on the elevator ride d-down, you kept passing out and I kept slapping your face, ‘cause I had to keep you awake. And you told me-…you kept t-telling me that if I slapped you again, you’d send me back to prison – right up until you passed out.”

Neal cants his head, tries to catch Peter’s eye, setting his jaw and looking at him.

“I-…I kept hitting you, though. ‘Cause I-….I’d go back to prison, if it meant you’d be safe and alive. ‘Cause I ca-…”

Neal cuts off, shaking his head and chewing on his lip. Talking about memories – good memories, bad memories, terrible things that are funny in retrospect; it’s like it breaks some levee inside of him, and suddenly all the stress and exhaustion and deathly concern of the past month or two is catching up with him all at once. He’s missed Peter so much – he was so scared that he’d never wake up, is still so scared that he might not ever be okay. It feels like there’s stones in his chest and gut, stones tied to his limbs, every part of him weighted down. He swallows reflexively, takes a deep breath.

“You know, Peter – you _know_ – only I know this stuff. It was just-….you and me, it was just us there. And we’re partners, right? I trust you – I trust you more than anyone. So you have to trust _me_ , now, okay? You need to trust that I’m telling you the truth. You’re sick, you’re really sick, and you’re confused – but Elizabeth’s okay, I _promise_ , I wouldn’t lie. God, she’s probably on her way here, now – they probably called her. Everything’s gonna be fine-….but, you _have_ to walk toward me, and come inside, okay?”

He’s practically begging, but he can’t worry about that now – can’t worry about anything other than making sure that Peter’s safe.

Peter stares at him – the same fixed gaze that the man has had the entire time that Neal has been speaking – and a sudden thrill of fear runs through Neal, that Peter hasn’t understood him or is too far gone to hear what he’s saying. But then suddenly Peter reaches out and takes his hand and walks away from the edge of the roof, and Neal exhales roughly, shaking with cold and worry and relief.

It’s only a moment before Peter slackens – whatever adrenaline rush that was keeping him on his feet wearing off – and Neal practically has to carry him inside, try to navigate him down the stairs. But none of that matters, because Peter is awake and alive and there’s enough of him left that he walked toward Neal instead of backing away and falling.

That’s enough. It’s more than Neal has allowed himself to hope for, since this mess began.

*

It takes Peter months to recover. He needs all kinds of workups, physical therapy for his too-long-sedentary muscles, psych evals, so forth.

They test Peter’s blood, and all traces of the drug are gone – as though it was never there. When Neal questions the greasy doctor about this, he just shrugs.

“Every drug has a half-life,” he says, “Every drug is eventually eliminated, and requires re-dosing.”

“That’s not what you said before.”

The doctor just blinks at him.

As for what happened to Peter, they might never know – once he was coherent again, he told Neal and Diana about how the Cartel had indeed kidnapped him from his car, in the middle of driving home – but that’s the last thing he remembers. He doesn’t remember any of his “nightmares” or hallucinations. He doesn’t even remember the night on the roof with Neal – or so he claims. All he remembers, Peter says, is waking up with a hell of a headache and a crowd of worried people around him and no idea of how much time had passed.

Still, Neal notices that Peter gives him a pat on the arm a little more often, when they visit, now. He notices that every time Peter sees Elizabeth, he holds her a little too long and has trouble letting go. When they finally return to New York City, Peter crouches to pet and hug Satchmo in such a way that Satchmo fidgets and whines about the ferocity of Peter’s affection.

Neal notices that Peter seems ill-at-ease in his home, these days – that he regards the stairs, especially, with a wary sort of concern.

Peter passes every test that he needs to, to be allowed back on active FBI duty. He maintains that he remembers nothing, convinces the FBI shrink that he’s not suffering any residual effects from the drug or the trauma of the kidnapping. They give Peter his gun-and-badge back, and things seem to go back to normal.

Neal isn’t convinced. Peter isn’t a good enough liar to fool him. There’s a quietness about him, these days – something that he isn’t saying, won’t ever say, probably does not dare to think about. Neal is sure he remembers more than he will admit to.

Neal’s suspicions aren’t confirmed, however, until six months after Peter returns to active duty. They’re at June’s – ostensibly working on a case, but really just drinking and talking.

After his sixth beer and halfway into his seventh, when his speech is slurring slightly, Peter looks hazily out of Neal’s picture windows, up at the sky. There’s a haunted look about him, and Neal can’t resist.

“Thinking about that night, on the roof?” Neal asks, casually – but there’s a serious undertone there, an implication, an invitation to talk. He gives Peter a look.

“You do remember, don’t you? How I told you to look at the sky.”

Peter turns his head slowly, studies Neal for a long moment. Then he looks back out the window, speaking in a vague sort of voice.

“I had no idea I was on a roof – not until the end. ‘Thought I was in my house. ‘Thought there’d been a break-in, and-….Satchmo was-…and El.”

He stops speaking abruptly, takes a long swig of his beer. Neal sighs heavily, frowning, shaking his head.

“It was just a dream, Peter – or…a hallucination, something. It was the drugs.”

Peter laughs humourlessly. “Was it?”

Neal squints hard at him, not quite understanding. Peter glances over and meets his eyes – and then looks away.

“It doesn’t strike you that-…some of this stuff doesn’t add up? Some of what happened doesn’t…make sense?”

Neal can feel his skin begin to crawl, but he shakes his head at Peter.

“What are you talking about?”

“I mean-…why didn’t the Cartel just kill me? Why take me to a hospital, or dump me, and risk that I’d talk? That’s not their style. And…you and El, why didn’t you get me transferred from Utica to New York straight away? God knows, the specialists here are better than in that…place. And why did the FBI send _you_ to keep an eye on me? Why not send an agent, or an agent to supervise you, at least? Someone with a gun, in case the cartel came after me? What they did…wasn’t protocol.”

Peter pauses, and then looks back to Neal, waving a hand to elaborate.

“Why don’t I know my doctor’s name – and why haven’t I heard of that hospital in Utica, before? Why didn’t any medical personnel come help you, up on the roof? And how the hell did I get out of my room in the first place, run around like that? And that…drug – how come no one’s ever heard of it? I mean, if cartels were using it, you’d think there’d be more people out there, who are…like me.”

Neal stares at Peter, not sure what to say – not sure, because Peter’s questions are actually hard to answer; when Neal really thinks about it, he isn’t sure of…any of those things, and it’s making his stomach hurt.

Peter gives him a dark look, a joyless smile. His fingertips brush over the scar on his brow.

“Maybe-….maybe someone _did_ break in – to my house. Maybe they cracked my head so hard that it put me in a coma. Maybe-….”

Peter’s voice catches, and he drinks from his bottle again before continuing.

“…Maybe El didn’t… _survive_. And Satch. Maybe they’re gone, and I’m in a coma, and all of this is…coma-land.”

“Peter, that’s insane.” Neal’s reply is flat and firm and automatic, even as a chill dances up his spine. “If this is all in your head, then-…”

Neal trails off, shaking his head, unable to finish, suddenly thoroughly disturbed by the implication that he’s nothing more than a figment of Peter’s imagination.

Peter stares out the window again, continuing as though Neal hadn’t spoken at all. “Thing is, if this is some coma, I don’t care if I stay in it forever – ‘cause…things okay now, right? My brain fixed everything for me. But-….Neal, what happens if I _wake up_?”

Peter gives Neal a look that makes him inhale sharply – and when Peter goes to take another swig of his drink, Neal reaches across the table and takes the bottle away.

“You’re drunk, Peter. You’re talking crazy.”

And that’s the extent to which Neal is willing to discuss it. His voice is harsh – scared. Not because what Peter says is possible – of course it isn’t, it’s insanity. It’s _insanity_. But obviously Peter’s reality testing is…damaged, from this whole experience. Neal makes a mental note not to let him drink so much, again. To keep an eye on him.

Frowning, Neal reaches across the table and takes Peter’s hand. Peter’s brown eyes turn up to look into his, and Neal squeezes his hand a little more firmly than is probably comfortable.

“I’m real, Peter. This is real. You can…feel my hand, feel pain – that’s reality.”

Peter looks down at Neal’s hand, and then looks up with eyes as dark and infinite as space, sparkling like the milky way.

“I could feel El’s body go cold, too.”

Neal recoils, a wave of nausea rolling over him, and he pulls his hand back. He shakes his head at Peter, standing from the table.

“You…should try to crash, Peter. You want the couch, or you want me to call Elizabeth to come pick you up?”

Peter sits soundlessly for a moment, and then nods and stands, moving to the couch and shaking open a throw rug.

“I can-…uh, El’ll be asleep, probably. So…” Peter motions toward the couch, nodding. “….Thanks.”

“Welcome,” says Neal, and then very hastily darkens the room, pulls on his PJs, retires to his own bed – avoiding further discussion, sorry that he brought it up.

It isn’t long before he hears Peter’s soft snoring from across the room – but Neal doesn’t sleep, can’t, his stomach all in knots. He stares at his hands, instead – thinks about Peter’s questions, tries to come up with perfectly rational answers to those oddities and others. Tries to convince himself that his slumber won’t cause the universe to collapse in on itself, that he isn’t just some projection of Peter’s mind, that he isn’t destined to disappear one day when the “real” Peter wakes up to a more barren and unkind world.

Eventually he does drift off to sleep – but not without saying a silent prayer, that he’ll wake up again, wake up as the same person. That the world won’t disappear when he closes his eyes.


End file.
